The Untold Story of the Jerry Falwell Jr. Sex Scandal
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VOICE OVER: Rebecca Brayton
WRITTEN BY: Jacob Pitts
The Jerry Falwell, Jr. sex scandal is an incredibly captivating story. For this essay, we'll be looking at the epic rise and fall of Jerry Falwell Jr., one of the most prominent Christian leaders in America. We'll cover everything you need to know about the electrifying tale, including Falwell Jr.'s Early Life, his troubling Extracurricular Activities, Trump & COVID Controversies, and more!
Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re discussing The Untold Story of the Jerry Falwell Jr. Sex Scandal. For this essay, we’ll be looking at the epic rise and fall of Jerry Falwell Jr., one of the most prominent Christian leaders in America. The son of the late televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr., he was the president of Liberty University, an evangelical Christian college in Lynchburg, Virginia, until a scandal in 2020 ended his history with the school.
Like many famous juniors, Jerry Falwell Jr. is often defined through the lens of his father. A Virginia-based Baptist pastor, Jerry Falwell Sr. was one of the most famous American evangelists during his lifetime. Besides co-founding the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, Falwell Sr. also founded two local schools: the Lynchburg Christian Academy in the 1960s, and Liberty University, a Christian college in 1971.
Falwell Sr. wasn’t just a big deal locally; he was seen as an authority in the wider evangelical Christian community, playing an instrumental role in the Christian right through his organization, the Moral Majority, which brought religion into politics and vice versa. As a result, Falwell Sr. was polarizing outside of his target audience. Some of his views were labeled racist, antisemitic, and homophobic. He had founded the Lynchburg Christian Academy in reaction to desegregation as “a private school for white students”. After 9/11, he famously blamed feminists, gay people, and abortionists for making God angry.
However, Falwell Sr. was revered and respected by his main demographic, even meeting with Republican Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. His schools had grown exponentially, with Liberty becoming one of the largest Christian colleges in the nation.
Along with a younger brother and sister, Falwell Jr. was brought up in Lynchburg, Virginia. He attended both of the schools his father founded, enrolling at the Lynchburg Christian Academy and eventually graduating from Liberty with a B.A. in history and religious studies.
Continuing his education at the University of Virginia School of Law, Falwell Jr. became a lawyer in the late 1980s and worked as one until 2007. In 1987, he married a woman named Becki Tilley and they had three children together. He joined Liberty’s Board of Trustees in 2000, beginning a longtime partnership with the school. However, as Falwell Jr. assumed a larger role at Liberty, things grew more complicated.
Inheriting Liberty
After Jerry Falwell Sr. died of cardiac arrhythmia in 2007, Falwell Jr. was poised to take over all operations as the new president of Liberty University, while his brother Jonathan became the new pastor at their father’s church. With the school growing a long way from its beginnings, Falwell Jr. not only had plenty of responsibility on campus but also the challenge of replacing his father’s presence as the face of the religious right.
However, many questioned Falwell Jr.’s ability to fill his father’s shoes. Several staff members at the university complained about Falwell Jr.’s alleged controlling behavior behind the scenes, and he sometimes used the school to advance his personal businesses. Although he was a Christian and had a degree in religious studies, he wasn’t a pastor like his father and they had very different skill sets. As Falwell Jr.’s reign at Liberty continued, he would eventually become even more political than his dad, alienating his own base in the process.
The cracks were beginning to show in Jerry Falwell Jr.’s public leadership, but it was his private life that would eventually make the most headlines. In 2012, he and his wife Becki reportedly started a seven-year affair with a 20-year-old man named Giancarlo Granda. They first met Granda at the Miami resort where he was a pool attendant, and they would allegedly continue to spend time with him over the years at hotels in Miami and New York. Eventually, Granda was visiting the Falwells at their home in Lynchburg, not far from the Liberty campus.
Allegedly, Granda and Becki would engage in the act while Falwell Jr. watched. Of course, this would just be a matter of consenting adults doing adult things - which by itself, isn’t a bombshell. But considering the Falwells’ background, the trio’s reported rendezvous became a major skeleton in their closet.
Although it had yet to become public knowledge, the couple had their first brush with risque headlines in 2019 when it was revealed that Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen helped them evade a nude photo scandal. However, it would be over a year before another scandal landed Falwell Jr.’s name in the news.
To put the Falwells’ entanglement in perspective, it’s important to look at Liberty University’s official policies regarding student relations. The school is known for their strict honor code, famously called the “Liberty Way,” which lays out expected campus conduct purportedly based on the Bible. Besides a dress code and alcohol ban, the Liberty Way has strict rules against premarital and gay sex. Students agree to the Liberty Way when they enroll, and are subject to fines and expulsion for breaking the rules.
Taking a look at these policies, it’s easy to see why the Falwells’ adventures could create a major scandal if they got out. While Falwell Jr. himself hadn’t been in the Liberty student body since the 1980s, he was still representing the school as president as well as the Christian right on a national level. It could easily be labeled hypocritical to expect students to adhere to these strict rules, while the school’s president and his partner did not.
Nevertheless, as his secrets remained hidden for the time being, Falwell Jr. did not shy away from the spotlight; growing his role as a controversial media figure.
Throughout his tenure as Liberty president, Jerry Falwell Jr. became a conservative media personality much like his father was previously. Occupying a unique position of both religious and political power, he grew into a major leader of the Christian right. In fact, it wasn’t until he endorsed Donald Trump for the 2016 presidential nomination that many conservative Christians took the former “Apprentice” host seriously. It was an unexpected move at first, but Falwell Jr.’s seal of approval was ultimately a major turning point for Trump’s chance in the election.
As time went on, Falwell Jr.’s support of Trump went further than the average endorsement. He defended nearly everything the controversial candidate did. In return, then-President Trump visited the Liberty campus in 2017 to give that year’s commencement address. Falwell Jr.’s political rants reached their peak in 2020, when he promoted conspiracy theories during the pandemic, ignited a Twitter feud with Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, and reopened the campus at the height of COVID.
Ultimately, after spending months in the news cycle due to his controversial opinions, it was in mid-2020 that Falwell Jr. became embroiled in scandal.
Jerry Falwell Jr.’s downfall was set in motion by a salacious picture. Not the ones Michael Cohen helped make disappear, but an Instagram photo posted by Falwell Jr. himself in August 2020. In the photo, Falwell Jr. was holding what appeared to be a glass of beer, with his jeans unzipped and his arm around a woman who wasn’t his wife Becki. From the outfit to the PDA to the drink, which he claimed was water in the comments, the post violated several of the rules that make up the Liberty Way.
In Falwell Jr.’s defense, he was supposedly at a costume party dressing up as a character from “Trailer Park Boys.” However, the contents of that show aren’t very Liberty-friendly either, especially considering that R-rated films and shows were prohibited on campus until recent years.
As a result of the confusion and backlash brought on by the photo, it was decided that Falwell Jr. would take a leave of absence from his presidential duties. But still, it was merely the beginning of a full-on media circus surrounding the Falwell family’s downfall.
According to Luke 12:3, “Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light”…eventually. Nearly eight years after the Falwells’ affair with Giancarlo Granda began, the former pool boy finally went public with his part in the scandal, revealing that he had fallen out with the couple after a bad business deal. In a Reuters exclusive, Granda dished about his hotel and at-home hookups with the Falwells and implicated both Becki and Jerry. He had texts, emails, and even audio recordings to back up his claims.
After catching wind of the story, Falwell Jr. spoke to the Washington Examiner with a very different account. Rather than confirming Granda’s story, or denying it outright, he blamed it all on his wife. Contradicting Granda’s story that Jerry watched him and Becki together, Falwell Jr. accused his wife of having an affair behind his back and Granda of trying to extort them.
For those who believed Granda’s story, he seemed to be throwing his own wife under the bus.
Falwell Jr.’s spicy scandal was quite the shock for adherents of the Liberty Way. He faced pressure to resign from his Liberty presidency, which he did. But shortly afterward, he sued the school his late father created, accusing them of “damaging his reputation” by taking the allegation seriously. Meanwhile, Liberty has sued Falwell Jr. back for $40 million for not making them aware of the potential liability.
After laying low since the scandal, the Falwells broke their silence in January 2022 in a tell-all interview with Vanity Fair. In it, Falwell admitted he’s far less religious than his father or brother, and again blamed his wife for the scandal. Becki backed up his account.
As for Giancarlo Granda, he’s written a book, “Off the Deep End,” and has since participated in the 2022 Hulu documentary, “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty.”
Liberty hasn’t been without its scandals since Falwell left. In 2021, a dozen women sued the university, accusing it of retaliating against women who made sexual assault claims, and creating an environment that increased the likelihood of sexual violence. It has also continued to receive criticism for its practice of offering conversion therapy to gay students.
But the Falwell chapter, at least, seems to be closed.
Falwell Sr.’s Legacy
Like many famous juniors, Jerry Falwell Jr. is often defined through the lens of his father. A Virginia-based Baptist pastor, Jerry Falwell Sr. was one of the most famous American evangelists during his lifetime. Besides co-founding the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, Falwell Sr. also founded two local schools: the Lynchburg Christian Academy in the 1960s, and Liberty University, a Christian college in 1971.
Falwell Sr. wasn’t just a big deal locally; he was seen as an authority in the wider evangelical Christian community, playing an instrumental role in the Christian right through his organization, the Moral Majority, which brought religion into politics and vice versa. As a result, Falwell Sr. was polarizing outside of his target audience. Some of his views were labeled racist, antisemitic, and homophobic. He had founded the Lynchburg Christian Academy in reaction to desegregation as “a private school for white students”. After 9/11, he famously blamed feminists, gay people, and abortionists for making God angry.
However, Falwell Sr. was revered and respected by his main demographic, even meeting with Republican Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. His schools had grown exponentially, with Liberty becoming one of the largest Christian colleges in the nation.
Falwell Jr.’s Early Life
Along with a younger brother and sister, Falwell Jr. was brought up in Lynchburg, Virginia. He attended both of the schools his father founded, enrolling at the Lynchburg Christian Academy and eventually graduating from Liberty with a B.A. in history and religious studies.
Continuing his education at the University of Virginia School of Law, Falwell Jr. became a lawyer in the late 1980s and worked as one until 2007. In 1987, he married a woman named Becki Tilley and they had three children together. He joined Liberty’s Board of Trustees in 2000, beginning a longtime partnership with the school. However, as Falwell Jr. assumed a larger role at Liberty, things grew more complicated.
Inheriting Liberty
After Jerry Falwell Sr. died of cardiac arrhythmia in 2007, Falwell Jr. was poised to take over all operations as the new president of Liberty University, while his brother Jonathan became the new pastor at their father’s church. With the school growing a long way from its beginnings, Falwell Jr. not only had plenty of responsibility on campus but also the challenge of replacing his father’s presence as the face of the religious right.
However, many questioned Falwell Jr.’s ability to fill his father’s shoes. Several staff members at the university complained about Falwell Jr.’s alleged controlling behavior behind the scenes, and he sometimes used the school to advance his personal businesses. Although he was a Christian and had a degree in religious studies, he wasn’t a pastor like his father and they had very different skill sets. As Falwell Jr.’s reign at Liberty continued, he would eventually become even more political than his dad, alienating his own base in the process.
Extracurricular Activities
The cracks were beginning to show in Jerry Falwell Jr.’s public leadership, but it was his private life that would eventually make the most headlines. In 2012, he and his wife Becki reportedly started a seven-year affair with a 20-year-old man named Giancarlo Granda. They first met Granda at the Miami resort where he was a pool attendant, and they would allegedly continue to spend time with him over the years at hotels in Miami and New York. Eventually, Granda was visiting the Falwells at their home in Lynchburg, not far from the Liberty campus.
Allegedly, Granda and Becki would engage in the act while Falwell Jr. watched. Of course, this would just be a matter of consenting adults doing adult things - which by itself, isn’t a bombshell. But considering the Falwells’ background, the trio’s reported rendezvous became a major skeleton in their closet.
Although it had yet to become public knowledge, the couple had their first brush with risque headlines in 2019 when it was revealed that Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen helped them evade a nude photo scandal. However, it would be over a year before another scandal landed Falwell Jr.’s name in the news.
The Liberty Way
To put the Falwells’ entanglement in perspective, it’s important to look at Liberty University’s official policies regarding student relations. The school is known for their strict honor code, famously called the “Liberty Way,” which lays out expected campus conduct purportedly based on the Bible. Besides a dress code and alcohol ban, the Liberty Way has strict rules against premarital and gay sex. Students agree to the Liberty Way when they enroll, and are subject to fines and expulsion for breaking the rules.
Taking a look at these policies, it’s easy to see why the Falwells’ adventures could create a major scandal if they got out. While Falwell Jr. himself hadn’t been in the Liberty student body since the 1980s, he was still representing the school as president as well as the Christian right on a national level. It could easily be labeled hypocritical to expect students to adhere to these strict rules, while the school’s president and his partner did not.
Nevertheless, as his secrets remained hidden for the time being, Falwell Jr. did not shy away from the spotlight; growing his role as a controversial media figure.
Trump & COVID Controversies
Throughout his tenure as Liberty president, Jerry Falwell Jr. became a conservative media personality much like his father was previously. Occupying a unique position of both religious and political power, he grew into a major leader of the Christian right. In fact, it wasn’t until he endorsed Donald Trump for the 2016 presidential nomination that many conservative Christians took the former “Apprentice” host seriously. It was an unexpected move at first, but Falwell Jr.’s seal of approval was ultimately a major turning point for Trump’s chance in the election.
As time went on, Falwell Jr.’s support of Trump went further than the average endorsement. He defended nearly everything the controversial candidate did. In return, then-President Trump visited the Liberty campus in 2017 to give that year’s commencement address. Falwell Jr.’s political rants reached their peak in 2020, when he promoted conspiracy theories during the pandemic, ignited a Twitter feud with Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, and reopened the campus at the height of COVID.
Ultimately, after spending months in the news cycle due to his controversial opinions, it was in mid-2020 that Falwell Jr. became embroiled in scandal.
The Photo
Jerry Falwell Jr.’s downfall was set in motion by a salacious picture. Not the ones Michael Cohen helped make disappear, but an Instagram photo posted by Falwell Jr. himself in August 2020. In the photo, Falwell Jr. was holding what appeared to be a glass of beer, with his jeans unzipped and his arm around a woman who wasn’t his wife Becki. From the outfit to the PDA to the drink, which he claimed was water in the comments, the post violated several of the rules that make up the Liberty Way.
In Falwell Jr.’s defense, he was supposedly at a costume party dressing up as a character from “Trailer Park Boys.” However, the contents of that show aren’t very Liberty-friendly either, especially considering that R-rated films and shows were prohibited on campus until recent years.
As a result of the confusion and backlash brought on by the photo, it was decided that Falwell Jr. would take a leave of absence from his presidential duties. But still, it was merely the beginning of a full-on media circus surrounding the Falwell family’s downfall.
In Too Deep
According to Luke 12:3, “Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light”…eventually. Nearly eight years after the Falwells’ affair with Giancarlo Granda began, the former pool boy finally went public with his part in the scandal, revealing that he had fallen out with the couple after a bad business deal. In a Reuters exclusive, Granda dished about his hotel and at-home hookups with the Falwells and implicated both Becki and Jerry. He had texts, emails, and even audio recordings to back up his claims.
After catching wind of the story, Falwell Jr. spoke to the Washington Examiner with a very different account. Rather than confirming Granda’s story, or denying it outright, he blamed it all on his wife. Contradicting Granda’s story that Jerry watched him and Becki together, Falwell Jr. accused his wife of having an affair behind his back and Granda of trying to extort them.
For those who believed Granda’s story, he seemed to be throwing his own wife under the bus.
Revelations
Falwell Jr.’s spicy scandal was quite the shock for adherents of the Liberty Way. He faced pressure to resign from his Liberty presidency, which he did. But shortly afterward, he sued the school his late father created, accusing them of “damaging his reputation” by taking the allegation seriously. Meanwhile, Liberty has sued Falwell Jr. back for $40 million for not making them aware of the potential liability.
After laying low since the scandal, the Falwells broke their silence in January 2022 in a tell-all interview with Vanity Fair. In it, Falwell admitted he’s far less religious than his father or brother, and again blamed his wife for the scandal. Becki backed up his account.
As for Giancarlo Granda, he’s written a book, “Off the Deep End,” and has since participated in the 2022 Hulu documentary, “God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty.”
Liberty hasn’t been without its scandals since Falwell left. In 2021, a dozen women sued the university, accusing it of retaliating against women who made sexual assault claims, and creating an environment that increased the likelihood of sexual violence. It has also continued to receive criticism for its practice of offering conversion therapy to gay students.
But the Falwell chapter, at least, seems to be closed.
